“By all accounts, 2015 was a transformational year for our company, marked by a landmark combination that started a new chapter in our rich 89-year history,” Zimmer Biomet President and CEO David Dvorak told stockholders in a letter within the company’s 2015 annual report. Anyone reading those comments—unless they had been living in the most remote part of the Amazon jungle for the past two years—knew precisely what he was talking about.

Though it first made headlines in 2014, Zimmer’s merger with Biomet officially closed on June 24, 2015. The deal was among a string of medtech company purchases that consolidated the industry and created a musculoskeletal healthcare force to be reckoned with. Also unveiled that day was the combined company’s new logo, an attempt by marketing to represent the rich heritage of both firms.

“Each of our companies has a proud heritage,” Dvorak said in the company’s press release announcing the merger’s close. “Just as the Zimmer Biomet name leverages the strong brand equity of both companies, the company logo combines Zimmer’s iconic symbol with elements of Biomet’s corporate identity.”

For the first time, the combined companies—which were both present in 2015’s Top 10 tally—made their joint appearance on the list, replacing the third spot held previously by Zimmer alone. The merger’s final price tag was $12.03 billion, according to the aggregate merger consideration paid, per the 2015 annual report. Biomet’s legacy product lines were included in the product portfolio, adding artificial knees and hips; sports medicine, extremities, and trauma products; spine, bone healing, craniomaxillofacial, and thoracic devices; dental reconstructive products; and cement, biologics, and other products. Biomet helped lift Zimmer out of its flatlining revenue doldrums of the past few years—in 2015 (year ended Dec. 31), Biomet added net sales of $1.6 billion to the company’s revenue total.

Biomet’s “contribution” (which still seems odd now that the companies are combined), helped the newborn firm achieve a landmark sales year. Though it fell far short of the $8.4 billion in estimated net sales at the time of the merger, the company’s fiscal year revenue reached $5.99 billion, a whopping 28 percent surge from the prior year. In fact, as a result of the Biomet merger, there was not a single loss in revenue reported in 2015 across any region or product category.

The most significant effects of the Biomet acquisition manifested itself in Americas sales, which totaled $3.66 billion—over half of Zimmer Biomet’s total revenue and a 41 percent increase from the previous year. The Knee and Hip product categories, which represented the most significant portion of the company’s portfolio, performed proportionally as strong due to the Biomet merger. In total, Knees achieved 2015 revenue of $2.28 billion, a 20.1 percent expansion from the previous year; and Hips garnered $1.54 billion in sales, representing 15.9 percent growth. In the Americas region, Knees and Hips rose 28 percent and 29.9 percent respectively, over 2014.

The Biomet merger had the most noticeable effect on the remaining product categories: S.E.T. (which includes surgical, sports medicine, biologics, foot and ankle, extremities, and trauma products), Dental, and Spine and CMF (craniomaxillofacial). S.E.T. product revenue totaled $1.2 billion, a 46.8 percent rise from the previous year. The $335 million in Dental product sales represented a 45 percent increase from the previous year, although sales there declined on a pro forma basis due to supply disruption related to a voluntary field action in response to a packaging issue. The Spine and CMF product category boasted the most impressive number in terms of a percentage bump—the segment’s $404 million in sales nearly doubled the amount of revenue from 2014, with a quite significant 95.2 percent increase.

Products of Note
Though Zimmer and Biomet had their plates full with the integration of the two companies last year, both entities (and later the combined force) released a number of noteworthy products into the market:

In February 2015, Biomet (still operating as Biomet Orthopedics LLC at the time) announced regulatory clearance and first clinical use of OsseoTi Porous Technology (a combination of the G7 OsseoTi shell and Biomet’s G7 Acetabular System) for total hip arthroplasty. Using human computed tomography data combined with 3D printing technology, OsseoTi builds a structure that mimics the architecture of human cancellous bone. The porous architecture facilitates creation of complex shapes, and maintains consistent porosity and strength required to stimulate bone and tissue ingrowth, as well as implant stability.

During 2015’s annual meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons in March, Zimmer Biomet launched a new external fixation system for trauma patients. XtraFix is a modular system that lets surgeons eliminate steps, bars, and clamps from the external fixation process, allowing accommodation of small extremity fractures in larger constructs. Small and large systems can be connected with a single clamp.

In September 2015, the company released the Subchondroplasty Procedure for the foot and ankle. Subchondroplasty is a minimally invasive outpatient intervention, which addresses defects relating to subchondral bone marrow lesions—associated with stress fractures or micro-fractures of the bone adjacent to the joint. Specifically, with a fluoroscopy-assisted procedure, subchondral bone defects are targeted and filled with AccuFill Bone Substitute Materuak. It’s usually performed alongside arthroscopy for visualization and treatment of the inner joint.

That’s a fairly impressive launch history for a company wrapped up in a merger. And there’s more to come— Dvorak hinted during the company’s third-quarter earnings conference call that Zimmer Biomet is gearing up for a “powerful pipeline” of products. Dvorak didn’t dig too deeply into what may come (for competitive reasons) but offered a glimpse into the company’s long-term strategy.

“I think you’re going to see an incredible cadence of new offerings, by virtue of the combination,” he said during the earnings call. “What it allows us to do in the intermediate to longer term is to repurpose dollars into more differentiated innovation, and get after it in a more aggressive way, addressing unmet clinical needs because of the scale that we have as a business, not just in large joints, but in the other product categories that are oftentimes faster-growing markets.”